For reasons to be revealed later (or not), MmeKGP has filed the social media equivalent of a restraining order, which probably means she is forbidden from reading my demure disquisitions on the subject of spirits.

Whether or not this exile is self-imposed is immaterial—she is the Belle of Bourbon, the Mash Mama, and should she read of the abomination being thrust upon us by Aske Stephenson—Peanut Butter & Jam Bourbon—well, that would pretty much seal the deal…

If KGP wasn’t already dead to me, she’d die.

Aske Me No Question, I’ll Pour You No Rye

Aske Stephenson is some cockamamie ‘innovation arm’ of an equally puerile pile of poppycockery called Fluid Movement, which is a cock-and-bull ‘beverage consultancy’ that describes its raison d’être as providing ‘experiential drinking experiences to their clients, the likes of which had never been seen before.’

I believe that in order to provide such likes-of-which idiosyncrasies, the duo of Thomas Aske and Tristan Stephenson have devised a foolproof technique. They have stripped their sleek London office of all the polished wood furniture, all the pictures of mallard ducks on ponds, all the distracting trappings of efficiency like desks and computers and golf clubs and have set up on one wall a chart listing every liquor on earth and next to it, a chart listing every food on earth, and from that point, it’s just a matter of throwing darts.

‘PB&J in a Cocktail’ is the result of one such dart-storming session, and although I confess to not having sampled it personally, I am going to guess it tastes pretty much like the peanut butter and jelly mixed with bourbon that I whipped up in my streamlined, mallard-and-pond painting-free kitchen, which tasted exactly like peanut butter and jelly mixed with bourbon.

The invention of the PB&J in a Cocktail

Granted, I had to leave out the ‘pink Himalayan sea salt’ that the cocktail’s brochure mentions as a key blending ingredient, primarily because I am a straight man and didn’t have any on hand, which may or mayn’t explains why my version of the ‘PB&J in a Cocktail’ sucked the socks off a Schwabian swineherd.

Speaking of Schwabian swineherds, Schwäbische Zervelatwurst & Sauerkraut Cocktail is another experience the likes of which the A/S clientele has never seen before—just in case someone is taking notes.

I could make up a hundred more cocktails using the mental dartboard I have set up within the expansive real estate inside my neocortex just below the mallard and pond painting, but instead, I’ll make up three more, then add a genuine cocktail from the idea guys at Fluid Movement and have you try to pick out the real one…

Cigar & Coffee Manhattan

Salt Shrimp & Cocktail Sauce Bloody Mary

Chestnuts Roasted By An Open Fire Old Fashioned

Fructose & Concrete Frappé

Okay, so I got bored at the end. The real one is the first one. Way to go, Aske and Stephenson: A drink that tastes like a cup of coffee somebody put a cigar out in. Was this an A list idea, or a hangover idea?

Don’t Aske, Don’t Tell

‘Name your poison.’

For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone not a bartender would want to call themselves a beverage consultant, but suspending that disbelief, I suppose if I did call myself one I would figure that anything, no matter how outlandish and unpalatable-sounding, would count as ‘innovative’. Even then, it would defy reason to think that anyone would actually spend cash money to drink stuff reaching this level of idiocy.

Can you imagine conversing with the aforementioned bartender and saying, “No, I am not interested in a Black Maple Hill 16-Year-Old Small Batch, but do you happen to have anything that tastes like the desperation sandwiches my boring mother used to stuff in my lunchbox when I was in the third grade?”

Another genuine item from the A/S portfolio is the ‘Flat White Russian’ which makes me think of little Aliya Mustafina from the 2012 Olympics, who I should not be thinking about at all. In any case, that ground is not innovative, the quintessential jailbait cocktail already having been covered in the Shirley Temple.

Ultimately, the sheer absurdity of trying to mix anything at all with bourbon except pure, clear branch water (preferably from a creek beneath the distillery) defies reason, and is, I am here to inform you, unwholesome, unconscionable and un-American. So, leave it to a couple of sniveling, hoity-toity limeys to go messing with our supreme spirit and call it ‘innovation’.

The good news is that as long as Mssrs TA and TS keep dreaming up nightmarish drink combinations, it’s one less idea I have to come up with on my own. Stupid cocktails and stupid mock tales mix, and this is something that MmeKGP and I can discuss once the restraining order is lifted.